The five men walked in the direction the woman told them. They continued walking along the abandoned road when Hajime spotted what looked like a stone building to his left. He stopped and asked, "Does that look like a house?" Hajime pointed to his left.
The four men walking in front of Hajime suddenly stopped and looked at where Hajime was pointing. The men did see what looked like a small house built of stone. If they didn't look carefully, they wouldn't be able to see this small stone house hidden behind the weeds and trees.
Abrafo put his hands on his waist and said, "This looks creepier than what the woman told us." He turned to look at his friends. "Do you think this house is really haunted?"
Yul turned to look at Abrafo and said, "I thought you weren't afraid of ghosts."
Abrafo refuted, "I'm not afraid of ghosts, do you know why?" He turned to look at Yul, and Yul look at Abrafo with a smile, shaking his head at Abrafo. "Because we've seen creepier things than ghost."
U-ri said, "Your attitude is indeed very positive."
Hajime said, "Well, haunted or not, we'll stay there because we don't have much money left."
Michio said, "Every inch of land you have lived in was once someone's grave, but I believe that since we have no ill intentions towards others, others will not have such feelings towards us."
" Let's go look," Yul said. "That's probably the best thing we can do right now. We'll figure it out later when we get settled."
When the five Tanzanies walked towards the small stone house, they discovered that the small stone house had been abandoned many years ago because some of the stones on the side of the house were broken. Michio began clearing the vines blocking the front door while the others helped clear the yard.
Yul and Abrafo used their swords to chop down some grass surrounding the front of the house. Abrafo frowned as he swung his sword at the tall grass. "My sword was given to me by His Highness to kill enemies...I can't believe it is now being used to cut grass," Abrafo complained.
Hajime walked up to Yul and Abrafo and asked, " How about the side of the house? Do you want us to cut down those vines as well?"
Yul said, "No, leave it alone. We want to keep a low profile."
U-ri said, "Now that we live here, we no longer keep a low profile, but at least no one will come to visit us."
After Michio cleared the vines and weeds from the door, he opened the door and a strong smell rushed out of the house. Michio took a step back due to the strong musty smell. "I think we might want to open all the doors and windows for a while before we go in," he said, slowly walking into the house.
Hajime followed Michio into the small single-story house. After entering, he found that the house was just a large open space with a small inground firepit. There is a window on the left wall and another window on the right wall; although the upper right corner wall was missing, the window is still intact. He pushed open the window to let fresh air into the room. He walked out the door and found others still cleaning up the front yard.
Hajime said, "There are no rooms in that house, just one big room."
U-ri picked up some vines and said, "We will dry it and weave it to divide our own rooms for privacy."
"Let's not do anything fancy," Yul said. "We won't be here long." He put his sword back into the scabbard on his back and started walking towards the forest.
Hajime shouted, "Where are you going?"
Yul said, "Look for water." He continued walking towards the forest.
"He should be looking for food, not water," Abrafo said, pointing to a well a few feet away from the house.
Hajime looked at the closed well and said, "Do you think the water in it is good?"
U-ri said, "Usually, unused wells or dry wells are covered to prevent leaves or animals from falling into the wells."
Abrafo looked at the well and said, "Well, I don't know. Let's go see if it's a dry well."
Hajime, Abrafo, and U-ri walked to the well, and Abrafo pushed open the wooden cover. The three men stared into the deep well.
Abrafo said, "There is water in it, but who knows if it is safe to drink." He picked up the broken bucket beside the well and threw the bucket into the well. He quickly pulled the rope up and found that the water was very clear. He looked at Hajime. "Test the water."
Hajime looked at Abrafo wildly, "Why am I your water tester?"
Abrafo said, "You can't die. Besides, we are mortals, and we don't have infinite life like you." He smiled at Hajime.
Hajime frowned, but still grabbed a handful of water from the bucket and drank it. The fresh water quenched his thirst, so he took another handful of water and drank it. He took the third handful of water and washed his face.
Abrafo asked, "So... is the water good or bad?"
U-ri took out the water bag and said, "Can you tell from Hajime's expression?" He began filling his waterbag.
Abrafo turned around and saw Michio still cleaning the front lawn. He yelled, "Michio! Come drink some water, bring me the water bags."
Michio grabbed four empty water bags and walked towards Abrafo and the others.
Walking down the old overgrown road, Yul came to the edge of the forest. He found many pheasants running around and discovered an abandoned garden next to a stream. He turned and looked back at the house. From where he stood, he could still see the roof of the small house. If it wasn't overgrown with weeds and trees, he could see the front of the house clearly.
Yul looked down at the overgrown garden and spotted beans, melons, radishes, gourds, leeks, cabbage and amaranth. He followed the stream and found a pond with lots of perch swimming around and water chestnut plants. There is a tree beside the pond that looks different from the other trees around it. The tree is shiny green in color, with golden berries, and some clear transparent berries. He also noticed that there were more golden berries than clear transparent berries on the branches. He looked at the tree for a while and decided not to pick the berries because he had never seen this plant before.
Yul stood for a moment on the bank of the pond, pondering his discovery. He knew that if they stayed here for a month, there would be more than enough food sources to feed them.
Yul turned to walk back to the garden when the wind blew past him, and a female voice humming stopped him.
"Hummm...hummm...hummm... shhh... Hummm...hummm...hummm... shhh..."
Yul turned quickly and looked around, but all he saw was tall grass and branches swaying in the wind, and he continued to hear a female humming in the distance.
Yul knew that although it was an abandoned place, there were houses nearby, and the humming female voice could come from someone else nearby or someone with a farm nearby, so he wasn't too worried.
Yul left the pond and walked back to the abandoned garden and started picking some vegetables for dinner. When a gust of wind blew, the female voice hummed the same note again.
Back in the house, Hajime, Abrafo, U-ri and Michio heard the woman's humming and stopped what they were doing.
"This is not normal," Abrafo said, looking around. Judging from the looks on the other three's faces, they were as confused as he was.
Michio asked in a low voice, "From which direction is the humming coming from?"
Hajime whispered, "The leaves are rustling, it's hard to tell which direction it's coming from."
Another gust of wind blew past the four Tanzanies at the well, and they heard another humming sound.
"Hummm...hummm...hummm... shhh...Hummm...hummm...hummm... shhh..."
Hajime listened carefully this time, and the sound seemed to be louder, coming from where Yul went out to find water.
Hajime said worriedly, "Yul..." and rushed towards the road.
Abrafo threw the bucket on the ground and said, "Michio, you and U-ri stay here." He quickly followed Hajime.
Michio yelled, "You two be careful."
U-ri looked as pale as a ghost and looked at Michio. He said, "The ghosts haunting here must be very powerful. They are not even afraid to come out during the daytime. What will happen at nightfall?"
Michio took out a talisman from inside his robe and put it between his fingers, but the yellow paper talisman had no effect. "Strange," he looked at U-ri confusedly.
U-ri asked, "Do you find anything strange?"
Michio said, "My talisman tells me there are no ghosts wandering here."
U-ri said, "Well, your talisman might be misguided. You and I both heard that humming sound. And not just us, but Hajime and Abrafo heard it too."
Michio said, "I know, but my talisman did not detect any ghost."
U-ri looked at Michio and said, "If it is not a ghost, what is it?"
Michio smiled and said, "I don't know, but you don't have to worry. You have four strong men protecting you, old man." Although Michio tried to calm U-ri with a smile, deep down, his heart was not as calm as his expression.